"they thought that he had been sent to work magic on them by the Peloponnesians.1 Tisa-menos the Elean was secured by Sparta because the oracle said that he would win five victories.2 He was apparently himself good medicine. But it is not too much to say that the mantis is normally responsible for victory. It has often been observed how the omens almost always suggest, as at Plataia or in the Argolis campaign of Kleomenes I., the adoption of the right stra­tegic move. The fact is usually explained by regarding the observation of omens as a mere form utilised by the agnostic general to inspire or restrain his superstitious soldiers. Perhaps it is as much due to the fact that the mantis was expected to work success for his clients. The exercise of his art must have called for no little sagacity. The Spartans killed Epimenides the Kretan Biori, irfyla-iv ovk aicria epavreveTo when they were at war with his kins­men of Knossos.3 A bronze statue to the seer Agias was erected in the market-place at Sparta. " They say that the predictions which this